Looking out through the mist-blurred window at the
pale streamers of dawnlight penciling the sky, Magda’s
eyes grew wistful—wonderingly questioning
the future. Was she, too, only waiting for the
revelation of dawn—the dawn of that mysterious
thing called love which can transmute this everyday
old world of ours into heaven or hell?
Gillian was at the door to welcome her when at length
the car pulled up at Friars’ Holm. She
looked rather white and there were purple shadows
under her eyes, but her lips smiled happily.
“Coppertop? How is he?” asked Magda
quickly.
“Sleeping, thank God! He’s safe now!
But—oh, Magda! It’s been awful!”
And quite suddenly Gillian, who had faced Death and
fought him with a dogged courage and determination
that had won the grave-eyed doctor’s rare approval,
broke down and burst into tears.
Magda petted and soothed her, until at last her sobs
ceased and she smiled through her tears.
“I am a fool!” she said, dabbing
at her eyes with a moist, screwed-up ball of something
that had once been a cambric handkerchief. “But
I’ve quite recovered now—really.
Come and tell me about everything. Did Davilof
play for you all right? And did you enjoy the
dance afterwards? And, oh, I forgot! There’s
a letter for you on the mantelpiece. It was delivered
by hand while we were both at Lady Arabella’s.”
Mechanically, as she responded to Gillian’s
rapid fire of questions, Magda picked up the square
envelope propped against the clock and slit open the
flap. It was probably only some note of urgent
invitation—she received dozens of them.
An instant later a half-stifled cry broke from her.
Gillian turned swiftly.
“What is it?” she asked, a note of apprehension
sharpening her voice.
Magda stared at her dumbly. Then she held out
the letter.
“Read it,” she said flatly. “It’s
from Kit Raynham’s mother.”
Gillian’s eyes flew along the two brief lines
of writing:
“Kit has disappeared. Do you know where
he is?—ALICIA RAYNHAM.”
THE FIRST REAPING
At breakfast, some hours later, Magda was in a curiously
petulant and uncertain mood. To some extent her
fractiousness was due to natural reaction after the
emotional excitement of the previous evening.
Granted the discovery of the Garden of Eden, and add
to this the almost immediate intrusion of outsiders
therein—for everybody else is an “outsider”
to the pair in possession—and any woman
might be forgiven for suffering from slightly frayed
nerves the following day. And in Magda’s
case she had been already rather keyed up by finding
the preceding few days punctuated by unwelcome and
unaccustomed happenings.
They all dated from the day of the accident which
had befallen her in the fog. It almost seemed
as though that grey curtain of fog had been a symbol
of the shadow which was beginning to dog her footsteps—the
shadow which stern moralists designate “unpleasant
consequences.”
